The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 04

by Anthology

  And after a long time, as it seemed to his troubled senses, all his planning focused on Zud and Naia—dwindled down to those two words. Lying here, bound, practically doomed to die, he could yet communicate with them in the astral state. And swiftly as the thing was always accomplished when he so desired it, he was bending over the high priest's body, asleep in the Zitran pyramid.

  "Zud," his spirit was calling. "The Mouthpiece of Zitu commands you. Come forth."

  And Zud appeared. "Aye, Jason of Zitu," he quavered. "Zud is here."

  "List he, Priest of Zitu," Croft replied, and told him what had occurred. "Wherefore give ear further to my words. Go to Lakkon, and bid him, in Zitu's name, to send to Jadgor at Atla, advising him to hold out and seek for delay until the aid from Himyra arrives. Let it be said to him that Zollaria inspires all things which Mazzer requires. Let him know that through the power of the spirit which is mine, I shall inspire Naia of Aphur to cause Robur, his son, to come swiftly to Atla in person, to direct the use of the weapons that together with myself he understands, and that through you and Naia of Aphur, I shall keep him informed of all that transpires while yet my body survives."

  "And thou—thou?" Zud faltered in distraught fashion, clasping his shadowy hands.

  "I? I know not," said Jason. "My fortune is in Zitu's hands. To you I give this mission. Say that you understand."

  "Zud hears, and Zud obeys."

  Croft left him. His work was finished. He sought Himyra and Robur's palace, and Naia—his other self. And this part of his plan he felt would be the hardest, since in order to make her comprehend fully he must tell a painful truth—must confess that through his own daring was Jason at last undone—that his body lay prisoner to Mazzer, condemned if what he meant to attempt were accomplished, to what seemed inevitable death.

  And suddenly, as he gained her chamber, Croft had the odd sensation that he stood before a tomb. He moved swiftly toward her couch. In the dusk her form lay stretched upon it. But—it was motionless, with no stirring of the coverlet stretched above it, no evidence of breath. Pale as a lovely image it lay before him, in the semblance of what might be death.

  Fear-sheer, stark fear gripped Croft and held him through the span of a startled instant. And then he knew the truth. Because as he stood there it seemed to him that Naia of Aphur was calling—not from the form on the couch, but from somewhere else. "Jason—Jason—O Jason, my beloved!" that subtle cry rang out.

  And it drew him. It compelled him. It made of his astral substance no more than a straw swept up and off and about in an eddy of compelling force. It was more like that ceaseless urge which had drawn him from the Dog Star always while yet he dwelt on earth.

  It carried Croft out of the palace and across the Central Sea. It swept him across Bithur, with its plains and night-wrapped woods. It drew him above the camp of the Mazzerian army, and inside that tent where his body lay stretched out upon the ground.

  And then Croft understood—that Naia had accomplished for herself, what heretofore had been by him induced. She had come to find him.

  Then very softly, "Beloved," he let steal forth the soul call.

  She heard. She lifted her head from where it had lain upon his breast. She turned its wide eyes toward him, and saw him and rose swiftly toward him, and into his embrace.

  "Jason—I cam to Atla, and could not find you. And I sought you—sought you. What is the meaning of this?"

  "The plane fell. I told you always there was danger," he explained briefly. "I was taken prisoner by the Zollarian masters of the men of Mazzer. I am held to ransom for a price."

  "Zitu!" Naia panted. "And what else?"

  "I went in the spirit to converse with Zud, and send him on a mission to thy father. Through him I shall send word to Jadgor that the price must be refused."

  "Refused?" Naia drew back slightly. "But Jason—thy body—which I found lying—here?"

  "Belonds to thee, while yet it survives," Croft answered slowly, and went on before she could find a reply. "Then went I to Himyra, and finding your form stretched on its couch, seemed to hear you calling, and returned to find you here. Listen, Naia, my beloved, you must find Robur and speak to him for me. To Jadgor you must send him, explaining what has befallen, telling him from me as the one Lakkon sent will tell him, that when Robur shall arrive to take charge of the motors and the riflemen of Aphur, they must strike, strike, strike until Bithur shall be freed. Also to Robur you must say he shall call on Nodhur and Milidhur to arm so quickly as they may, and send their men to reenforce and support Aphur. So shall Tamarizia vanquish Mazzer and once more defeat those things Zollaria plans."

  "And—you ask me—to do this?" Naia faltered.

  "Aye—for Tamarizia I ask it," Croft replied.

  "But—you—you?" She glance toward the tight-bound body.

  Croft sought to stay her questions. "Look not there, beloved. I am here."

  "But—unless this price of Mazzer you mentioned—be paid?" She would not be refused.

  Croft drew her to him. His position was perhaps rather more peculiar than that of any living man. The answer to what she had asked was death, and he knew it. Once he had snapped the astral cord that bound him to a body, but only after control of another had been gained. And that second body, the one he had made his own on Palos when he forsook Earth because of the woman whose vital substance now glowed and paled against him, was the one which lay bound beside them on the ground. There was no other—the loss of it meant to him what the loss of physical life must mean to all men—nothing else. "If the price is not paid, it is easy enough to snap the cord that binds my life within it, at the proper time," he said at length.

  "And," said Naia in a tone of horror, "you would ask me in taking your message to Robur, in sending him to Jadgor, to consign our love to death?"

  "The price," said Croft in justification, "is very great. Much will Mazzer ask—more than by Tamarizia can be paid for one man's life."

  Swiftly the auric fires leaped up in Naia's slender figure. "Is there no escape?"

  "I know not," Croft made answer. "It is as Zitu wills. These Zollarians with the men of Mazzer have stained themselves blue. Yet whom have I to stain my body, were the stain within my grasp, or shave my hair and dye it red in time to make the venture? This tent is under guard, and will be, and the hands of my body are bound."

  Naia considered. "And the price Mazzer will ask," she spoke slowly after a time, "is large?"

  "Aye, as large, I fear, as though the Zollarian war had been lost by Tamarizia and Mazhur not regained."

  "And if not paid—your body—dies—and mine."

  "Thine?" Croft tightened the grip of his arms upon her. "What mean you, maid of Aphur, by such words?"

  "Aphur means what Aphur says," she returned. "Think you that when life has left your body, Naia of Aphur, too, shall not lie dead? Did you not swear to me by Zitu and Azil to return and claim me? And if that promise remains unfulfilled, think you that Naia of Aphur will live?"

  "Yet," Croft stammered, "if the welfare of Tamarizia demands the failure of that promise—if not with honor can I return to Himyra in the body. If your words, beloved, make doubly hard my purpose, when you shall have left me and returned to carry my message to your cousin—"

  "By Zitu—and by Zitu," Naia fired into desperate protest, "it shall not be. Azil, giver of life! Shall these foul spawn of Zitemku keep you from me? Nay, as I am a daughter of Ga, with your seal upon me, now Ga speaks to me!

  "Hark you, Jason, whom I love more than my own soul. This tent is guarded as you have said, and a price is laid on Tamarizia for your returning. Yet am I not a woman whom you have wakened for nothing, and my love is not in vain. What price for a man who is dead?"

  "By Zitu!" Croft caught her meaning. His glance turned toward the body on the ground beside their feet.

  And Naia nodded. "Aye—Gaya told me in speaking of those things you told to Robur and to Zud, and now I know for myself that when the spirit is without it, the bo
dy lies as dead. Wherefore were it possible for you to remain as now you are for a space sufficient to deceive these men of Mazzer into thinking that injured in your fall you perchance had died—think you they would keep your body under guard or even near them, lest it foul the air even like those rotting corpses which tainted it with horror as I passed this night by Atla's walls?"

  "No by Zitu—they would cast it forh in some other place," Croft answered quickly. "Naia—Ga—priestess of life, you have said it. Together we shall beat them yet."

  "Aye, we shall beat them. Listen further," Naia said. "For a few suns you shall appear to be alive, yet faint and not recovered from injury. To Himyra shall I return and carry your message to Rob. When seven suns beginning with the next are passed, then must you seem to die. Thus shall they carry you forth. But the seven days shall be to gain time for what you direct to be done. Hai, I am not daughter of Ga for nothing. Beloved—give me your mouth. I must be gone."

  Life! Life and this woman! There was a chance. Her wits had found it where his had milled around. Croft took her once more closely into his arms.

  "Seek not to leave your body for one moment between now and the end of the seventh sun," she cautioned, "lest one should note it and so at the proper time entertain a doubt of your real death."

  "No," he gave his promise. "I shall be merely as one who from one sun to another fails."

  Naia lifted her lips. And as once before in similar fashion, she yielded them to him. For an instant it was as though their two beings blended, intermingled, and then she had torn herself from him, divinely glowing. "Zitu keep you, beloved," she whispered, and vanished from before his eyes.

  For the succeeding seven days Croft endured—simply endured discomfort—the trussing up of his arms and feet at night in none too gently fashion, the scant irregularity of poorly furnished meals, the absence of aught save trampled grass to sleep upon, renewed attempts on the part of Bandhor to force from him some intimation of Tamarizia's plans, and the haughty, venomous hate that glared out of Kalamita's tawny eyes.

  But on the seventh day, as he lay brooding in his tent, close by the huge skin headquarters tent of Bandhor, which reminded him more of some Tatar chieftain's domicile than anything else, the door of his own tent was drawn slightly to one side and a face appeared to send his heart leaping into his breast.

  Maia, Naia's own maid, was looking shrewdly into his starting eyes. And as lost in a maze he lay staring at her, filled with a vast wonder at her presence here in the heart of the Mazzerian camp, yet afraid to speak—torn between a desire to learn the meaning of her presence and a fear lest any sign of recognition should destroy whatever purpose that presence might portent, she flung the flap entirely back and darted inside.

  "Thou canor of Tamarizia!" she cried in the voice of a termagent—a shrew—and struck him with her right hand a smart blow. "Thou foul offspring of Zitu fallen to the ground—thou devil who sent fire against my people, whose own people have cast him off, die—like the canor thou art!" And all the time she was shrieking she continued to buffet him with blows, striking him with her bare hand, kicking him with her feet. "Die, thou pale-faced fiend, whom Bel—greater than thy Zitu struck down and hurled among us—die—die now!"

  But croft, under the storm of her words, her buffetings, made no movement of resistance, lay limp and unresisting on the grass. Because even as she struck him, as her one hand rose and fell above him, her other drew from the narrow apron about her blue loins a little looped silver cross, and showed it to him briefly and thrust it back, and between the anathema of her lips they moved in almost soundless speaking. "Hupor—give ear to my berating of thee closely. I come from one who loves thee greatly—to show you the cross."

  The cross ansata—the looped symbol of life—the little sign Zud had placed in Naia's hands at their betrothal—the sign of immortal life which came to men through women—Naia of Aphur was sending it by this servant of hers, who loved her, to him! He closed his eyes and nodded slightly in understanding as Maia continued to rave.

  "Die—thou canor—die as Bandhor has decreed thou must, since Jadgor has refused thy ransom! Die now—thou Tamarizian dog!"

  She had told him to listen closely to her vituperations. Jadgor had done as he advised, and Bandhor's captive had lost value. Wherefore he kept his eyes closed, and seemingly died.

  Footsteps! Croft's guard burst through the door. He seized Maia and flung her to one side and stooped above the body with a face of terror. And then he straightened and turned upon her. "By Bel, you have killed him!" he stammered. "He has been ailing ever since he fell among us. Fool that I was to listen to your plea to view him. May Bel send you our commander's rage."

  "That rage," Maia said, panting as it seemed from her exertions and emotions, "seeing that he is of value no longer, should not be so intense."

  "Come!" The guard seized her by an arm and led her toward Bandhor's tent.

  Croft went along, trailing the man and woman's steps. And once inside the huge shelter of skins, the guard saluted sharply and hurled Maia before the Zollarian noble, so that she sprawled her length on the ground.

  "Behold, O Bandhor"—he made his report in a gruff bluster designed to cover his own face as well as he could—"this woman who made her way by stealth into Jason of Tamarizia's tent and struck him so that he died!"

  "Hai!" Bandhor half rose, and sank back and narrowed his eyes. He regarded Maia, who groveled before him, her body caught and held, half raised, on stretching arms, her head lifted, gazing in to his startled face with watchful eyes.

  "How are you called?" he inquired.

  "Maia," stammered the woman. "Child am I of a father and mother who have lived among his people. All my life have I served them until Bel sent Bandhor and my father's people to bring liberation. Then I slipped away and made my way to thy army, with which I have stayed the past sun. Wherefore, hearing that Bandhor had condemned this one to death, I desired to see him and, seeing him, rage overcame me, and I threw myself upon him. Mercy, O Bandhor, mighty commander of my people, for this which I have done."

  "Hai!" said Bandhor again, his lids contracting still further. "After all, it is a small matter, though my sister will be annoyed. She had planned a more lingering death for this insolent man. Yet to death was he condemned, and it is finished. Say you that from the bondage of his people you have come?"

  "Aye, from Atla, lord."

  "Atla! Now, by Bel!" Bandhor roared. "And what inside the penned-up city do these white spawn plan?"

  "They speak of resistance," Maia made answer, "as Bandhor knows. But perchance he knows not that many men from Aphur have arrived, armed with the chariots they call moturs, which run by fire, and breathe it forth as death, and with the sticks that throw death unseen with noise and smoke, unlike the flight of an arrow or spear. Ten thousand have reached Bithra, and are advancing to the relief of Atla even now. More are said to be journeying from Aphur across the Central Sea, and yet others from Nodhur and Milidhur are to come."

  "Hai!" For the third time Bandhor said it with a heavy frown. "This is of importance. For the information your words contain, I give you pardon—were those other of thy father's children in Tamarizia as loyal—much might be wrought of ill among them were their caste of servants to rise and kill and burn. Go!" He turned to the guard, whose face had lightened. "Take men and bear forth this body, and cast it beyond the camp. Or hold! I will view him myself." For the third time his eyelids narrowed, and he rose.

  Followed by Maia and the guard, he entered Croft's tend and bent over the body on the ground. "Aye—his spirit has left him," he said as he straightened from the inspection and swung about on his heel.

  "Might Bandhor," Maya stayed him. "I may remain for a time in the camp?"

  Bandhor eyed her. "Oh, aye," he said in careless fashion. "You are a comely girl of your people. You should have small trouble in finding some man to take you to his tent."

  He turned away, and a moment later a brazen trumpet began sounding
a summoning blast. As Croft learned, this was a signal to Bandhor's captains and advisers to assemble for a council with their chief.

  Maia stole out with the arm of the guard about her, walking coyly at his side. Quite plainly the fellow was inclined to take Bandhor's suggestion about her to himself. Croft watched them vanish, and remained beside his own body, still huddled on the grass.

  And in the end he followed it—followed his own body when it was borne outside the limits of the encampment and cast into a thicket of bushes, where its disposition was watched by Maia, who accompanied the now openly amorous guard and lingered beside the thicket with him after the other soldiers had cast down their burden and gone.

  "Let us remove its clothing," she suggested. "To waste it were a loss."

  The guard assented.

  Five minutes later, more than a little aghast, Croft found his material tenement stretched stark upon the ground. Maia and her lover were moving off. In her arms the girl bore his suit of soft, brown leather.

  In a way now Croft became more and more disturbed. Vague fancies filled his mind. Still—she had shown him the tiny cross from the apron about her waist, and she had told him to die, as Naia had advised he should. After all, she might have some definite reason beyond his present knowledge for divesting his body of clothes. And he could do nothing until nightfall. That being the case, and the night being several hours removed, there was nothing to do but wait. Dead it might be in seeming, yet Croft knew that lying thus in the open his body needed protection. In the middle of the thicket he settled down beside it. It was rather odd, he found himself thinking, to be sitting there keeping an invisible watch of his own form.

  Now and then, as the afternoon passed, he stole a glance at the camp. There was bustle there, a moving and shifting of men. It came to him that Bandhor, after his council, was preparing for another attack of Atla, urged thereto by Maia's report concerning the approaching reinforcements of weapons and men.

  Night came at last. Purposely Croft waited until late before making his venture at escape. And while he waited, there stole into the thicket a dim shape, which approached his body and sank beside it on the ground.